Metro Pulse/Ear to the Ground

Comment
on this story

To Avoid Confusion, etc., Go Down

Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee is relocating its Knoxville clinic from Northshore Drive to Kingston Pike on the lower level of the Kingston Four Center at number 8733, directly below a business with the same street address that sports a big sign: "Beds for Less."

Take Me to the Pilot; I am but a Deputy

There's a volatile issue on the agenda for the next County Commission meeting—gas. Tired of his deputies having to drive downtown to the county service center on Baxter Avenue or to the westside satellite station at First Utility District to fill up their tanks, Sheriff Tim Hutchison came up with the idea of bidding out the contract. Pilot Oil was the low bidder, and Hutchison says filling up the cruisers at Pilot stations will save time and money, since "you can't throw a rock and not hit a Pilot Station" and since the service center charges 24-27 cents a gallon "for us to pump our own gas." It takes more than one tank of gas to get a deputy through a whole shift.

Problem is, Hutchison hasn't been able to get the Pilot bid approved, allegedly because county Finance Director Kathy Hamilton has refused to sign off on it. Hamilton, who did not return a Metro Pulse call, is said to be concerned about the financial impact on the service center. Hutchison is taking it to the commission to sort out, and it will be interesting to see how he fares there, since his usual adversaries (Wanda Moody, John Schmid, Pat Medley) tend to also favor saving the county money. Not to mention that they are staunch allies of Pilot chief Jim Haslam, whose ouster as head of the Public Building Authority the above-mentioned commissioners blame on Hutchison, who says filling up at Pilot will save the county a minimum of $65,000 a year.

Pretty Soon You're Talking Real Money

The Citizens for Home Rule saga is getting expensive. Chancellor Daryl Fansler last week appointed attorney Tim Houser as receiver. Houser will have the responsibility for sorting out CHR's day-to-day affairs, which mostly consist of making sure anti-annexation lawsuits are filed in a timely fashion. He may or may not be instructed to arrange a general membership meeting for the purpose of sorting out the current mess and deciding who the true officers and board members will be. Currently, there are two dueling boards and two sets of officers, and more lawyers—and lawyers' bills —than you can count.

Fansler, who last week refused to dismiss lawyer Marilyn Hudson, who represents CHR for one faction and says she wants out because her client owes her $12,000 that it cannot pay, due to CHR's bank account being frozen, shows signs of wearying of the whole dispute, which he labeled "a mess." A lawyers-only hearing is set for Dec. 20

All the Knoxville Fit to Print

OK, we know it makes us seem kinda small-town to get all excited whenever some big-city paper—like, say, the New York Times—says something nice about Knoxville. Still, it was pleasant to see four Knox-related items in the Gray Lady the past two weeks: a positive review of the indie film A Good Baby, which features stalwart Knoxville thespian Jayne Morgan in a supporting role; an appreciative write-up of Knoxville Area Transit's Shop and Ride program; and, in Sunday's paper, a two-fer—an article in the magazine about UT's "Body Farm" (with spooky photos by Sally Mann), and, in the Book Review section, a photo of acclaimed architect Maya Lin's library on the Alex Haley homestead in Clinton, with a caption noting the building was by Lin "with Martella Associates." (If you don't know that name, they're the architecture firm on Market Street with the cat in the window.)